Empire, environment and religion: God and the natural world in nineteenth-century New Zealand

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dc.contributor.authorBeattie, James John
dc.contributor.authorStenhouse, John
dc.date.accessioned2010-05-03T04:27:32Z
dc.date.available2010-05-03T04:27:32Z
dc.date.issued2007
dc.description.abstractThis article, using colonial New Zealand as a case-study, and integrating environment, empire and religion into a single analytic framework, contends that Christian and environmental discourses interpenetrated and interacted in irreducibly complex ways during the long nineteenth century. Many of the colony's mostly Protestant settlers interpreted the book of Genesis as giving them responsibility to 'subdue and replenish' the natural world; dominion theology played an important role in legitimising the improvement projects integral to settler capitalism whose consequences have aroused ambivalence from many modern scholars. Yet some, perhaps many, colonists also believed that they had a duty to take care of the land and its creatures even while transforming it. A commitment to large-scale environmental change could and often did co-exist with interest in and respect for nature. When the unexpected and unwanted consequences of environmental transformation became apparent, as they did shortly after the beginning of organised settlement, concerned Protestant community leaders deployed Christian discourse, biblical images and Protestant ethics along with utilitarian and scientific arguments to mobilise environmental concern and a conservationist conscience.en
dc.identifier.citationBeattie, J. & Stenhouse, J. (2007). Empire, environment and religion: God and the natural world in nineteenth-century New Zealand. Environmental and History, 13(4), 413-446.en
dc.identifier.doi10.3197/096734007X243159en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10289/3840
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherThe White Horse Pressen_NZ
dc.relation.isPartOfEnvironment and Historyen_NZ
dc.relation.urihttp://www.erica.demon.co.uk/EH.htmlen
dc.subjectempireen
dc.subjectenvironmenten
dc.subjectChristianityen
dc.subjecttheologies of natureen
dc.subjectimprovementen
dc.subjectconservationen
dc.titleEmpire, environment and religion: God and the natural world in nineteenth-century New Zealanden
dc.typeJournal Articleen
pubs.begin-page413en_NZ
pubs.elements-id33361
pubs.end-page446en_NZ
pubs.issue4en_NZ
pubs.volume13en_NZ
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